What is a Cancer Registry?
What is a cancer registry? Well, it is a structured department, program or system usually found in hospitals and medical clinics. The cancer registry is an information gathering system, staffed by Cancer Registrars, to collect, manage, and analyze demographic and health information on patients who have been diagnosed or treated with cancer and some benign tumors or neoplastic diseases.
Cancer Registries are classified into three different types:
- Hospital Registries who maintain data on all patients diagnosed or treated for cancer at that facility. Facility-specific data is usually submitted to a state-funded or central cancer registry as required by law.
- Central Cancer Registries are population-based registires that gather data from the hospitals and medical clinicals and then maintain that data on all cancer patients within their geographic area.
- Special Purpose Registries collect and maintain data on a particular type of cancer, such as brain tumors or hematologic conditions.